■Indonesia
Speech causes concern
With the armed forces fighting to contain two insurgencies and the police struggling against rising lawlessness, Indonesia's president suggested yesterday that she supported setting up vigilante groups. The announcement sparked immediate fears of a re-emergence of armed militia groups like those that rampaged through East Timor in 1999, killing hundreds, because they were angry that the territory voted for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum. "The lack of numbers of security officials makes it impossible for our police and military to guarantee our citizens' security," President Megawati Sukarnoputri said. "That is why we need to seriously consider the people's request to defend themselves, especially in regions that are suffering a security disturbance."
■ Bangladesh
Floods kill four children
Floods killed four more children in Bangladesh, bringing the death toll from a weeklong monsoon deluge to 59 and afflicting about a million villagers in a third of the country, officials said yesterday. The latest fatalities occurred on Monday in the south and southeastern districts of Cox's Bazar, Bhola and Feni, government relief officials said on condition of anonymity. Two children drowned in flood waters in Cox's Bazar, 300km south of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.
■ Afghanistan
Mosque attack injures 17
Seventeen people were injured when a bomb exploded at a mosque in the main southern Afghan city of Kandahar during evening prayers, local radio reported yesterday. The timed bomb was left in a vest inside the Abdul Rav Akhundada mosque in the centre of Kandahar and exploded during Monday evening prayers, it said. Ten boys and seven men were injured in the blast, three of them seriously, it said. A local official had said Monday that 10 were injured in the explosion. "It is an attack against Islam, an attack against Muslims," Kandahar provincial governor Gul Agha said in a radio broadcast.
■ India
Diggers seek extension
Government archaeologists have urged a court to give them another 15 days to complete excavations at the site of a demolished 16th century mosque to determine whether a Hindu temple once existed below it. The court was expected to rule yesterday on the application filed Monday by the Archaeological Survey of India. Mobs of Hindu hard-liners demolished the Babri Mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya in 1992, claiming the site was the birthplace of their principal deity, Rama. They want to build a huge temple there. The demolition of the mosque triggered religious rioting across India in which at least 2,000 people were killed.
■ Japan
`Smoking' gene uncovered
Japanese researchers believe they may have identified a gene that makes it more difficult for some smokers to give up cigarettes. The paradox is that the same gene might also offer protection against pulmonary emphysema, one of the lung diseases most linked to heavy smoking. A team from Keio University report in the journal Thorax yesterday that they took DNA samples from 203 smokers or ex-smokers with suspected chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 123 non-smokers with few respiratory symptoms. They identified a variation of a gene called CYP2A6del, which seemed to play a role in processing nicotine through the body.
■Algeria
Military plane hits home
A military plane slammed into a house west of the capital Algiers on Monday. As many as 17 people were feared dead, including women and children on the ground, authorities said. Fire raged through several houses after the C130 Hercules transport crashed in the neighborhood of Beni Mered shortly after takeoff from the Boufarik military airport, 35km southwest of the capital. There was confusion about the number of deaths, with rescuers saying 17, state-run Algerian television putting the toll at 15 and Colonel Zoubir Sbaa of the Algerian military saying 12.
■ Syria
US releases detainees
The US said on Monday it had handed back five Syrian soldiers held since a US raid on a convoy near Iraq's border with Syria nearly a fortnight ago. The Syrian border guards were injured when US special forces attacked a convoy they believed was carrying aides of toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: "The five Syrians were wounded. They were treated. They're all back in Syria." Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing that the operation 12 days ago captured roughly 20 people, of whom "two or three" were still being held. He did not identify these people.
■ United States
Shuttle damage overlooked
While Columbia was still in orbit, a flight director e-mailed the shuttle's astronauts to say there was "absolutely no concern" that breakaway foam that struck the space shuttle might endanger its safe return. Investigators are increasingly convinced a chunk of foam from the external tank smashed against Columbia's left wing, loosening a protective panel along the leading edge. That could have permitted searing temperatures to penetrate the spacecraft during its fiery return, melting key structures aboard Columbia until it tumbled out of control at nearly 20,920km per hour.
■ Canada
Nurse dies of SARS
Another person died of SARS at the weekend, Canadian health officials said Monday, bringing the death toll to 39 and the number of active cases to 24. The latest victim, a 51-year-old nurse at Toronto's North York General Hospital, died Sunday, officials said. Her death brought the caseload down to 24, one lower than the last report on Friday. Since March when the first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome arrived here, 39 deaths have been linked to SARS in Canada, with all occurring in the Toronto area.
■ Congo
Compromise Cabinet begins
Congo's president signed a decree setting up a new power-sharing government that joined Congo's existing government and rebels in an administration meant to lead the country out of nearly five years of war. If it holds, the transition government stands as a major step toward ending a war that has split Africa's third-largest nation and killed an estimated 3.3 million people by aid groups' count. Signing the government into being Monday, President Joseph Kabila called on Congo's belligerents to "draw a line between the past and the present, and look toward a bright future." The accord divides 36 ministries among the government, rebel movements and pro-government militias, political parties and representatives of civil society, in line with a December peace accord.
■ United States
Buddy Hackett dies at 78
Buddy Hackett, the squat, round, rubbery-faced funnyman who appeared for more than 50 years as a top act in nightclubs, Broadway shows, on television and in such movies as The Music Man, a The Love Bug and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has died, his son confirmed Monday night. He was 78. Hackett died at his Southern California beach house either late Sunday or early Monday, his son, Sandy Hackett, said. Hackett was invited to join the Three Stooges when ``Curly'' Howard, the bald-headed member of the comedy team, suffered a stroke in 1946. But Hackett declined, believing he could develop his own comedy style. He learned to get laughs with his complaints about being short, fat and Jewish.
■ United States
Friendly fire pilot charged
The US Air Force set aside manslaughter and assault charges against a US pilot Monday and said he will face trial on dereliction-of-duty charges for mistakenly bombing Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last year, killing four. Major Harry Schmidt, 37, could get six months in prison if convicted of the offense. A date for the court-martial was not immediately set. The dereliction count alleges that Schmidt ``failed to comply with the applicable rules of engagement'' and ``willfully failed to exercise appropriate flight discipline over his aircraft.'' Schmidt and fellow National Guard pilot Major William Umbach, the mission commander, attacked the Canadians' position on April 17, 2002, from their F-16s.
■ United States
Cat lovers fear serial killer
Four more dead cats have been found in the Denver area, heightening fear among pet owners that a serial cat killer is in their midst. Authorities say at least 40 mutilated cats have been discovered in Denver and its suburbs in the past year, including four killed over the weekend. The toll in Salt Lake City is 10 cats and another unidentified animal. In several cases, it appears the attacker kills the cat, then taunts the owner by bringing back the remains. Some of the animals were are cut with surgical precision. Some may have been killed by another animal.
■ United States
Swordsman kills two
A sword-wielding supermarket employee killed two co-workers and wounded three other people in a crowded store where he worked before police shot him to death. The incident occurred Sunday in a supermarket in Irvine, about 50km south of Los Angeles, when Joseph Parker, 30, who worked as a grocery bagger, entered the store wielding a meter-long samurai sword. He calmly went about attacking people, nearly decapitating one of his victims as staff and customers tried to fend him off with cans of food and other items from the shelves.
■ United States
Alleged snakehead deported
One of the alleged masterminds of a 1993 immigrant-smuggling voyage that ended in the deaths of 10 Chinese in the waters off New York City was put on a plane from Hong Kong to the US to face federal charges. Cheng Chui Ping, a reputed immigrant-smuggling kingpin lost a three-year extradition fight and was en route Monday. Ping, 53, was to be arraigned today in connection with the voyage of the Golden Venture. The rickety freighter, packed with 300 illegal Chinese immigrants, completed the 25,750km trip to the US before running aground off the city.
Agencies
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